How to Coach Yourself and Others Empowering Coaching And Crisis Interventions | Page 107

This book is in B&W, not color - Print page in Grayscale for Correct view! It is appropriate for the counsellor to tentatively introduce some of her own ideas, leaving a lot of room for the client to respond. However, as a rule, counsellors should let the client have the first opportunity. Adapted from Shebib, 1997. Step 2: Choose an Action Strategy Once a creative list of alternative action strategies is identified, the next task is to assist clients in evaluating alternatives and making choices. This involves helping clients intelligently consider each alternative against a number of criteria. An obvious first criterion is that the alternative is potentially effective for meeting the client’s goal. It must be sufficient to make a difference and relevant to the problem being addressed. A second criterion is that the alternative is within the capacity of the client. Otherwise, failure is inevitable. A third criterion is that the alternative is consistent with the values and beliefs of the client. A fourth is that the alternative is reviewed in terms of potential cost. Cost might be measured by time, money, and energy expended in finding resources to execute the alternative. As well, alternatives might result in other losses for the client. For example, suppose a client wishes to end a pattern of alcohol abuse, but the person’s friends are drinking buddies. If quitting drinking involves developing new activities, the potential loss of friends and social structure must be considered as a negative consequence that will have an impact on the client. Understanding and exploring this loss is important, for unless clients are aware of and prepared for these contingencies, they may be unable to sustain any efforts at changing. Success Tip Help clients conduct autopsies (also known as post-mortems) on past experiences as a tool to help them identify errors in thinking, triggers, problematic responses, and successes. Help them answer the questions “What went wrong?” “What could I have done differently?” and “What worked well?” Step 3: Develop and Implement Plans Developing and implementing plans involves four substeps: (1) sequencing plans, (2) developing contingency plans, (3) putting plans into action, and (4) evaluating plans. Effective plans are maps that detail the sequence of events leading to the final goal. Counsellors should avoid tailor-made plans in favour of customized strategies that are designed in collaboration with individual clients. Some of the important questions that need to be answered include the following: ■ What specific strategies will be used? ■ In what order will the strategies be used? ■ What resources or support will be needed at each step? ■ What are the risks and potential obstacles? Contingency Planning Effective plans anticipate the potential obstacles that clients might encounter along the route. Once clients know and accept the possible barriers that could interfere with their plans, they can develop contingency plans to deal with these barriers. This preventive work helps keep clients from giving up when things don’t go smoothly. A variety of different strategy choices can be used to support contingency planning, including the following: ■ anticipatory questions such as “What will you do if . . . (detail possible obstacles)?” ■ role playing (including counsellor modelling) to explore and practise strategies For [email protected] Property of Bookemon, do NOT distribute 107